September 7, 2009

It seems that Mike Lupica is amusing his readers who want the opposition to shut up. (When did "shut up" become a liberal argument?)

Here's the end of Lupica's shut-up-loons column:

Some of this is racial, though Obama's critics would never see themselves as being racist in a million years.

And the sense that criticizing the President is racial, is that racial? I'm guessing Mike Lupica wouldn't see himself as being racist in a million years.

But there is something more going on, not just white versus black but white hats versus black hats, on both sides of politics, both the right and left selling conflict with both hands, trying to give you a Civil War every night on Cable America because that's where the ratings are.

Only it's not civil. And somehow the most gullible people have been convinced that the enemy is anybody who disagrees with them. About anything.

Maybe the ones who fear Obama the most, the ones who hate him the most, should try doing what a lot of schoolchildren will do tomorrow, as this President tries to inspire them:

As a change of pace, maybe they should stop shouting and listen.

Oh, wait! Mike Lupica never wrote the words "shut up and listen." He wrote: "stop shouting and listen."

And he doesn't call anyone "loon" either. But somehow the headline writer read his column and came up with "Loons should shut up and listen."

I guess it's not just "Cable America" that's "trying to give us a Civil War" and "selling conflict with both hands." It's Lupica's newspaper, the Daily News, reading his column that — irony! — calls for civility.

Or did the headline writer pick up Lupica's real message, which was not the "civility" business padding page 2? The real message is: Obama's opponents are crazy/racist/stupid and should not be talking. And if you protest that characterization you're being uncivil.

The debate about Obama's CRAZY critics has evolved from simple free speech being exercised among some Internet Idiots into free thinking being exercised among the captives of the Old Media's Meme-masters. That sounds like a revolution has been started among a once free people to throw off the shackles of mind control on them that the Old Media had worked so long and hard to develop. Now if a leader that has these free people's trust will stand up and Face Book or something, then the free people may indeed win. It has been a very interesting 6 weeks since Trig Palin's Mom spoke up for him and reminded us that we all, like Trig, deserve to have leaders that care more about our welfare than they care for their own wealth and power.

Since when does anyone give a damn about what Lupica has to say about politics? Wait a minute, better get John Madden on the phone as well to get his two cents. For that matter, let's call up Terry Bradshaw and get his take as well. Obviously, Mike Lupica

Lovely; the leftist media is up in arms over anyone who dare question their president. Yet, Lupica has the unmitigated gall to describe anyone who dare question our Socialist-In-Chief as having gone "haywire."

Better yet, "...the most guillible people have been convinced that the enemy is anybody who disagrees with them." Of whom are you speaking Mr. Lupica? - clearly that has been the leftist policy line for decades now. Finally, it is your leftist brethren (such as, for instance, the superintendent and school board of Broward County) who are ordering kids to listen to Obama and to "sit there" and "be silent;" in other words, they must subject themselves to The One, they must sit there and they must shut up.

Frankly, Mr. Lupica doesn't even have the ability to formulate sound, objective political commentary. His role is that of a well-trained parrot; he is merely a hack who is towing the policy line of Mort Zuckerman, the darling of MSNBC, publisher of NY Daily News, chairman/editor in chief of US News & World Report and financial contributor to Democrats - who in fact contributed to California Democrat and "super-delegate" George Miller (George Miller supported, you guessed it, Obama).

I think Obama will do a fine job of regurgitating partially digested mush into the mouths of little schoolchildren. I have no argument with it. I think this is one of a number of things that he does better than Hillary.

The 8:45 AM Call of left-wing groups for officials from more than 20 labor, environmental, and other Democratic-leaning groups dial into a private conference call hosted by two left-leaning Washington organizations. makes sense in a lot of ways. Our allies on the right often do the same.

What is at fault on the blogs and even sometimes here is the lack of actual thought that goes into a comment. While I personally am on the right on a majority of the hot button issues, I still despise the mindless repetition of talking points, the demonizing of all on the other view side, and the "case closed" attitude that comes from anyone of any political stripe.

What a country! On this Labor Day we can comment here without the fear that we'll be shut down or possible jailed. More than 2/3 of the World's Population can't say that today.

May be sentimental to say it, but thank you Ann for this forum, and God Bless America this Labor Day and for always!

The speech is up, and it is boilerplate and trite. There is no reason any school should be required to carry it. There should be no controversy if a school decides to carry it.

It proves the propaganda attempt made by the Dept of Education, though. To call it "historic" or to encourage kids to see it as "inspiring" was a serious overreach. The administration was definitely trying to use teachers to encourage students to see this as something other than...boilerplate and trite.

Isn't it interesting this idea we have that it's okay for a politician to talk to children as long as he doesn't seem to be political?

I don't think piping politicians into the captive audience of classrooms is okay in any case, but if I were arguing that it was okay, I wouldn't argue that it was okay because the politician appeared to be apolitical.

A politician's job is to be political. If a fireman comes to school to talk about his work, it's about being a fireman. He doesn't try to tell you about his career while dancing all around his goal to put out fires. A policeman wouldn't come and give a talk that carefully avoided mention of catching criminals.

If a politician is going to talk, it seems more appropriate that he be political.

You're supposed to be engaged with him as your representative. You're not supposed to bond with him as your buddy.

According to this logic, those protesting against Bush's likely overthrow of the 2008 election (remember how long ago it was? It was like 2 or 3 percentage points lower unemployment and several trillion dollars of borrowing/spending ago. How time flies!) should have just shut up and waited for it to happen, and then they could have protested.

The hilarious thing is that so many of the crowd screaming "read the bill" have not even"read the speech!" Irony is lost on them. Wankers!

The difference is, the bill actually existed before 35 minutes ago.

As Freeman says, the problem isn't the content and I, like her, never argued it was.

The Department of Education wanted to turn a completely banal speech into a "historic" event to encourage children to help the President. Obama supporters tried to make it just horrible if schools didn't want to choose to play the speech.

It has never been, and never should be, a requirement that citizens of any age listen to a president speak. If a school doesn't feel this boring message will help their students, they should be able not to play it without harassment from the likes of Robert Gibbs.

Somewhere we've let it creep into our consciousness that our politicians are our betters. They are not -- they are simply selected for a short period of time. They haven't earned the right to be our kings. And they don't have the right either.

I realize that deep inside Teh One™ is a desire to make the unpleasant opposition just go away, but really, did we make him take the job? I seem to recall he spent nearly a billion dollars just to get elected, which sounds like he really wanted it.

So he should just put up with the noisy, fact-free opposition. I'm sure he's still quite mad a Troofer got exposed and ejected during this very critical time when all the attention should be about HIM.

Here are snippets from Obama's speech that the crazies leading the Republican Party have called "indoctrination" and "socialism."

All quotes:

* Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

* Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

* But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

* No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work.

OK, wingnuts! Show us the socialism you have been screaming about!

What are you opposed to anyway? - Students showing up to school - Students studying. - Students learning. - Students listening to teachers and parents? - Hard work

What, exactly, do you disagree with so much in this speech that you had to raise holy hell about it?

Freeman, you are confused. You have no right to speak if you speak against the Anointed One Who Can Do No Wrong Especially When He Usurps the Role of the Parent and Teacher in Order to Speak About Himself.

Get with the program. You don't want to be on the losing side, do you? After all, he won, and all dissent must now be silenced, especially icky dissent from people peeking behind the curtain.

"Shut Up" and do things the stalinist way, is always the liberal's argument position on everything (plus demeaning comments and personal destruction perpetrated against anyone disagreeing with the pure liberal faith). The porkulus bill, cap and trade, the health insurance legislation, global warming, and other issues were all 'shut up' 'don't read the bill' 'republican/ conservative input not wanted' 'vote first don't ask questions afterward' by the democrat-liberal caucus in Congress. When republicans on few occasions tried to exclude democrat input in bills pending before Congress, the liberal media reported it like the republicans were attempting a coup d'etat, but nowadays with nearly forty czars, most of the lamestream liberal media is asleep with visions of Obama giving state run sugarplums, dancing in their heads.

"The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said the head of the Florida Republican Party.

What a loon!

Oops! That was Dick Gephardt, House Majority Leader (the Steny Hoyer of his time) speaking about Reagan's speech. Of course, when that happened, Dick was right. But this time, to say the same thing is to (a) be a loon and (b) to be a hater of the President.

My, my, my. How things change when there's a (D) instead of an (R).

Mark, you still there? Because this will be a good stunt for your radio show today.

“But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.”

So my take is that this speech is Obama being father to all the kids who are growing up in a home without a father. Because this is all stuff that normally the parents tell their kids; they don’t need the president to tell them. But I applaud the effort if Obama can help 5 kids raise their effort level and believe enough to get out of the poverty trap.

But while he is on this topic, maybe Obama will take the opportunity to apologize to these kids without fathers in their home, for the "Great Society" programs that destroyed the black family structure in America, and left so many of these kids without a father to provide and protect them, and read to them and demand that they do their homework.

He could go further and make it a teaching opportunity to explain how it was that well intentioned but misguided rich white liberals cared enough about these kids to throw food stamps at them, but not enough to downgrade from their own penthouses to distribute their own wealth, and not enough to erect social policies that helped keep their family structure in tact and their father at home (the uncontroverted most influential factor in a poor kid’s success.)

As Freeman says, the problem isn't the content and I, like her, never argued it was.

The Department of Education wanted to turn a completely banal speech into a "historic" event to encourage children to help the President. Obama supporters tried to make it just horrible if schools didn't want to choose to play the speech.

Agreed. It wasn't so much the content of the speech, WHICH by the way we don't know it the santized speech released now is the same as the one that would have been given had they not been caught with their pants down.

The objection is two fold

1. Forcing ALL children or forcing anyone to have to listen to a speech by a politician. This should be a voluntary action as long as we are a free society.

and MOST IMPORTANLY

2. Objection to the mandated...oooops I mean suggested....lesson plan following the speech to reinforce the President's message, whatever it was going to be.

This is propoganda pure and simple and indoctrination of a captive group of people. Children. Classic technique used in dictatorships and communist countries. Trying to make the Dear Leader central to the children and make the children more loyal to the Dear Leader than they are to their parents and to their parent's value system. Pure evil and they got caught.

They got caught and the people are are on to them. People are aware of the soft indoctrination that has been taking place in the public school system for years and THIS was the last straw.

Obama using the first day of school to try to raise education performance by reaching our directly to the educable - pure leadership and service.

If so then why has the most media/web savvy president evah produced such a vapid, static presentation?

Why didn't the WH reach out to the rich resources available in the liberal online and media community to produce a presentation that teachers could build upon?

As to the public outrage, the WH stepped on its own dick by not releasing the speech text when they PR'd the broadcast.

Unfortunately, when Obama told Americans who do not support his agenda to stop talking and put a snitch site on the WH server he created a poisonous atmosphere that taints everything he does with suspicion.

It was his choice to alienate half the country. Now he has to live with the fallout.

I predict everybody will grab their hats and leave within two sentences.

Nobody likes being addressed like that."

agreed. it reads like a cross between a local tv version of Mr Rogers and the blandest ward cleaver lecturing the beav' then tousling his hair.

the most troubling thing to me is his mention of google, twitter and facebook by name. is this the first instance of state-sponsored product placement in a presidential speech?? how is that ok? those companies helped get him elected so i guess he had to pay them back somehow. icky.

1) It's wasting school time. Schools already waste time and money, this only adds to it.

2) That the department of education is at all involved in writing lesson plans and dictating how instruction is to be done. Even if the lesson plans were totally benign (which the originals were not) this is simply not the function of the federal government. We have a federalist system for a purpose.

Do note that I'm also not pleased with how much states involve themselves in the minutia of public education.

Like Freeman -- some good things, but over all a waste of time to make kids all over the country sit still and listen on HIS schedule. Not to mention having preK and little kids listen. Say what?

And definitely a re-write after the flak they got.

But some things can never be sanitized out:

Re miller. This commenter also noticed the wash of *I s* over and over and over...

Aforementioned commenter didn't get around to counting all his *I s* because commenter is too busy not being President of the United States of America.

Did you know that "I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn."

Betcha didn't know that! Let me know when you see the POTUS with his hammer and paint brushes. Is he driving the UPS delivery truck? Maybe we should send our Box Tops for Education to the White House to help him?

Why does he friggin have to take credit for every single thing? (Because narcissists do not think in the we.)

Critics are particularly upset about lesson plans the administration created to accompany the speech. The lesson plans, available online, originally recommended having students "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president."

The White House revised the plans Wednesday to say students could "write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals.""That was inartfully worded, and we corrected it," Higginbottom said.

So the administration admits they made a mistake and that the so-called loony critics had a valid complaint.

It was precisely the essay part, not the speech itself, that gave many people like myself, a "WTF?" reaction. And that's good. Means people are paying attention.

After eight years of "abstinence only" education is the left so soon to pretend that children AREN'T brainwashed in school?

All children are brainwashed in school and they have always been brainwashed in school. In the 50s children were brain washed about those sneaky homosexuals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijbovskICjk

Speaking from my own highschool experience in the late 80s/early 90s, I know I sat through countless “lessons” on the evils of pesticides and the virtues of organic farming (among whatever other environmental issue was hot at the moment). All of it one-sided propaganda.

So these parents are not loons for thinking their children will be brainwashed at school, they are just a little late to the party.

But it has little to do with Obama's address (which is comparatively harmless), and keeping their kids home for one day is a pointless gesture when every other day the kids will be inundated with indoctrination.

The only solution is to either keep your kids home from school every single day, or to teach your children to be skeptics, to question authority, and to have finely-tuned bullshit detectors. And then dare the school system to try to brainwash your kids, having enough faith that your children are not total flakes that will believe everything they hear at school.

I’m here I knowI know When I was young I wasn’t too happy I know But I’m here today I have something importantI’m here because I want to talk with youI’ve given a lot of speeches I’ve talked a lot I’ve talked I’ve talked I’ve talked a lot I want to focus

Aye yae yae

But praise be! He does NOT say "Let me be clear..." or "As I have said before..." Whooee!!

"Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength."

{Therefore I am strong. Kids make connections like that. Propagandists write that way.}

"Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions."

He is doing EVERYTHING? Wow. Whiff of hyperbole there. How about school vouchers? Mmmm? How do those DC kids feel about that? If I were the DC parents and others denied the choice (!) of school vouchers I would jump on that.

"I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. "

Because *I* said so.

When there is NO accountability, statements like that are useless, except for those who internalize it as they have a special relationship with whoever the speaker is.

Okay -- now that I have trashed it I think it nice to encourage kids. But he really is stuck on being POTUS. And on himself.

How about working with communities with high risk factors in a more low key fashion and not sounding like a nanny. If he thinks they're in love with him because he's the first "black" POTUS, he's probably right. They could have managed this a lot better. But they'll have to cut out the personal crap if they don't want marching, dancing and singing kids on youtube that we can freak over.

wv = lionaOk. This liona will shut up.However -- this is the WRITTEN text. Assuming he doesn't go off TOTUS tomorrow, it should be the same, but I would expect a couple deviations.

DBQ - This is propoganda pure and simple and indoctrination of a captive group of people. Children. Classic technique used in dictatorships and communist countries. Trying to make the Dear Leader central to the children and make the children more loyal to the Dear Leader than they are to their parents and to their parent's value system. Pure evil and they got caught.

They got caught and the people are are on to them. People are aware of the soft indoctrination that has been taking place in the public school system for years and THIS was the last straw.

DBQ has it right. This is not so much about the words as liberal educrats again setting up a system to push their beliefs on malleable children. It is our liberal educrats taking "best lessons learned" from Uncle Adolf and Pappa Joe and the local "reducation Soviets" the Bolshevik Jews set up for educating workers and children in "correct thought" and applying it here.

Orwell understood this.

And knew that the key to success of "Dear Leader" was to say 95% good and unquestionably helpful things, to slip the sinister into reeducation. "Be good students. Work hard. Wash behind your ears. Fight the class enemies that exploit the sweat of honest people and kill THEIR children. Share your cookies, be nice! Take care of your neighbors dogs when he is away doing heroic concrete pours for our new People's dam. Water his flowers..Tell your teacher if your parents have any deviant or counter-revolutionary thoughts, so the commissar can help you..Always shine your shoes. Help a classmate with their math assignment. Remember that your work at harvest time is really good. Each cabbage you pick and trim at children's harvest break will mean a little less hunger for all. Don't pee in the pond - hero proletariate drink from there!"

In America, the same system, with revised textbooks, has been used to revanche US history into a tale of the Oppressors and the Oppressed. It has been used to excuse crime as an expected social injustice response. And a system of Algore "The Planet is melting" curriculum reinforced with teacher lesson plans, grades based on "level of green activism" has been used to foster a belief system.

People are getting very queasy about kids coming out of public school showing manifestations of indoctrination.."The US was really no different than the Nazis...see what we did to Japanese-Americans!!" "Mom, you need the new Algore CFL bulbs, because if you don't use them, our family will be complicit in killing polar bears!" "Meat-eating is bad. My teacher says there are good things to eat, and bad things..like meat, soda, peanuts that can kill people..."

So along comes another Leader, on top of Gore, that seeks to make use of the same system in school. And people are concerned. No surprise!

"The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president,..."

And the National Endowment for the Arts should not be producing propaganda for the president.

And AL should reconcile his demand that we "accept" the election of Barack Obama by suspending our own ideas about the world and about politics and that we disagree only without making ourselves heard, with the opposition to our previous president who *also* won.

Also, AL, Obama only provided the content of the speech when forced to do so and the DoE guide lines were altered so they no longer had the phrases in them that were most objected to and local schools have received enough push-back from parents to be cautious about what they do.

Crowing that the present situation proves that there was no there, there, is like saying that an immunized child who doesn't get sick proves the shot was unnecessary.

I am not surprised that Obama's school speach is in the end pretty tame (wash your hands...) but I am also not surprised many do not trust him. Why should they after nonsense like Van Jones resignation being called racism and the MSM ignoring anything critical of Da One?

I am not surprised that Obama's school speach is in the end pretty tame

Me either. It would be very interesting to know what the speech was going to say before they got caught. Wouldn't it? Hmmmmmm?

No one trusts Obama or any of the thugs that he is surrounding himself with. He has been caught in too many lies, exagerations and refusals to disclose information. Why would we trust him? Seriously. Give me a reason.

VW: REFUNIT what I ask for when I took that faulty hard drive back to Best Buy.

How funny. Now that the speech has been released, and it's obvious that the speech will be the non-partisan, positive (if somewhat bland) speech that Obama's supporters said it would be, the people who were bashing it for days in advance are now mostly talking about how they were never opposed to the substance of the speech, just the process. And of course, you have our local village idiot, Dust Bunny Queen, emerge from her trailer to say, "It would be very interesting to know what the speech was going to say before they got caught. Wouldn't it? Hmmmmmm?"

How pathetic. This would all be a good joke, except for the genuine damage being done to this country by the Obama Derangement Syndrome crowd.

Do you *really* think this is the same speech? If it's the same speech why not release it when the decision was made to release it instead of days later? And really, did the Department of Education have a copy of the speech in order to write up the proposed lesson plans about helping the President? Or was that just a case of over-zealous public employees acting on their own and making assumptions about what the President would say in his speech to school children.

And *really* at what point would the creep factor set in for you?

When the WH has a conference call with artists that receive government grants and asks them to think of ways to use art to promote the president's agenda? Would that be creepy to you? Hamsher over at Firedoglake is on about how anyone who criticizes the administration gets their funding cut. She's a loony lefty. Is she blowing smoke? Would you find it creepy if people within the administration seemed to be directing private organizations to boycott opposition voices? Would you think it *strange* and perhaps a bit disturbing if the administration asked loyalists to send the information on those spreading "lies" to a white house snitch line?

Maybe you wouldn't. But a whole lot of people genuinely think that the specter of Beloved Leader simu-cast to all the school children in the nation to have reached the point of *creepy.*

Particularly when accompanied by prepared lesson plans to direct the children to think of ways to help the president.

I *get* that the left doesn't see anything wrong with propaganda and censorship and bright children footsoldiers in the noble crusade... but can't you just *pretend* for a while that these things are creepy? Pretend for form's sake if nothing else, even if no one has the balls to so much as criticize someone like Chavez for shutting down radio and news stations. Seriously WE DON'T TRUST YOU and we don't trust OBAMA to even notice the requirements of freedom for its own sake.

Freeman says: Yes, and some of us are even on the record proving that we were against the process all along.

No, some of you are on the record claiming as such, not proving it. Such claims aren't believable, given past performance.

Synova says: Do you *really* think this is the same speech? If it's the same speech why not release it when the decision was made to release it instead of days later?

I know enough about political logistics to know that oftentimes, speeches aren't finalized until shortly before the time they are given. Also, I have no reason to believe that anything other than a bland speech to schoolchildren was written, given the audience. But, hey, weren't you the one saying that you could expect Obama's speech to be 100% composed of socialist platitudes? Please, show us examples to prove this point, now that you have the text of the speech available.

I believe I said that there was a 100% chance of the inclusion of socialist platitudes but I have come to realize that socialism does not exist. Nor Marxism. Nor communism.

Because I'd call anything urging a communal responsibility, doing good works for your fellow man, save the earth and polar bears, and volunteer to work for nothing because it's a requirement you can't get out of... to fall somewhere in the white-space between those categories.

But I've come to realize that because "socialism" and "communism" are bad things, that nothing anyone thinks is good could possibly be either.

A person or organization can make a statement that the DOE should not be spending tax dollars developing lesson plans in support of the president's political agenda, or expressing shock that the lesson plans include instructions to teachers to encourage the children to think of ways to help the president, or explain that a nationwide broadcast to a captive audience of children is way too much like Big Brother for comfort...

... and it all gets reduced to "you just don't like this president and are making up those reasons, you don't really think that."

somefeller: Now that the speech has been released, and it's obvious that the speech will be the non-partisan...

When I first read the speech all I could tweet about was how political it was. Obama spends about 10 percent of it on personal propaganda, telling everyone how great and admirable he is (plus his wife).

His talk of specific children (by name and with city) is something pulled straight from a political playbook.

I did like this bit though:

"I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work"

Thanks for the compliment. On the other hand, if you were making a reference to the song "More Than Words", that was a song from the craptastic 80s band called Extreme (whose lead singer went on to nearly kill Van Halen as a respectable rock band), not Mr. Big.

Word Verification: angsta - the term for conservatives who are always whining and screaming about Obama, socialism and fluoridated water.